Noir November: Notorious
Written by Cameron Geiser
Every day for the month of November, Cameron Geiser is reviewing a noir film (classic or neo) for Noir November. Today covers Alfred Hitchcock’s espionage classic Notorious.
With the triple threat involvement of Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, and Alfred Hitchcock in 1946, arguably near the heights of their collective power, Notorious was sure to be a hit! While the film may have drawn back some details of the typical Hitchcock production, there seems to have been extra emphasis on the symbolic nature of key items over wordy dialogue and inventive camerawork. Though there are some clever shots sprinkled throughout the film, this is Alfred Hitchcock after all. There’s also a surprising lack of judgment given to our main character in Ingrid Bergman’s Alicia Huberman. Which is especially true given the circumstances she’s put in and the era of the film in general.
The film begins with a snippet of the trial of John Huberman, convicted of treason against the United States. The real subject of the film however is his daughter, Alicia Huberman. She’s a notorious party girl, and one that has intrinsic value to an American spy agency. Her father used to have a very elite circle of friends, and one of those men happened to show an interest in her, which in turn attracted Devlin (Cary Grant), a suave American Agent, to bring her into the operation underway in Rio de Janeiro. After proving that she really does have a patriotic side, Devlin provided audio recordings of her arguing with her father where she insists that she loves America, she agrees and they head to Brazil.
Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Notorious.
While awaiting orders in Rio, Devlin and Alicia fall in love with each other, almost without even noticing. Despite Devlin's perturbed feelings regarding Alicia's promiscuous past, he still tries to persuade his superiors that she wouldn't be fit for the mission. They were unconvinced, and the plan went forward. Devlin and his agents set up Alicia's invitation to a dinner party hosted by her father's old friend Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains). While there Alicia does obtain a few bits of pertinent information, a guest expresses muted shock at the presence of the bottles of wine out at the party- a moment quickly brushed aside by others attending the social gathering. Afterwards when Alicia is divulging the details to Devlin, she notes that “You can add Sebastian's name to my list of playmates.” and that he had proposed to her. She asks what to do next and Devlin coldly replies that “You can do whatever you want.” Which Alicia finds incredibly disappointing.
At another social gathering Alicia and Devlin attempt to discover the significance of the wine bottles, which they do, but not without being caught by Sebastian. They play it off with a kiss, infidelity is better than discovering espionage after all. Turns out the wine had Uranium in some of the bottles, where Sebastian also finds evidence of Alicia's tampering. When he turns to his overbearing mother, they decide to slowly poison his new wife whom he’d trusted far too quickly. After Alicia doesn't show up to her pre-arranged meetings with Devlin for several consecutive days, he finally breaks into Sebastian's mansion, declares his love for her, and walks her right out of there in his arms. Sebastian pleads with Devlin at the curb of his mansion to go with them to the hospital. He knows that when they drive off without him that he’s going to die as he ascends the stairs to the beck and call of another Nazi lying in wait, “Alex, will you come in, please? I wish to talk to you.”
Yes, Nazis. Maybe due to the subtlety in the dialogue or the notion that this was a Spy Noir set just after World War Two- I hadn't considered Nazis, leaning instead towards Russians to be the villains given the Cold War's icy beginnings.The thrills in this one were almost as subdued as the subtext, its more of a quietly clever film than an outwardly captivating one. Given that it's more of a Spy movie than a Noir, I'd debated whether or not to include it in Noir-Vember, but it's still an interesting evolution of the sub genre. There's an ambient anxiety running throughout the film from the opening scene, and the predominant theme of the film is trust. The three main characters all have significant issues with trust in differing ways, and that paranoia ultimately fits snugly within the Noir realm. Devlin takes the whole film to trust Alicia and his feelings for her. Sebastian offers up his trust to Alicia far too easily and pays the price for it in the end. Whereas Alicia has a need to be trusted, something Devlin fails at initially, he also must learn how to open his own heart to the possibility of love.
Notorious was a fascinating film. I never suspected that a film in the 1940s would ever depict American Officials to be as murky in morality as shown here. The intelligence agents were callous and indifferent in exploiting a young woman to serve their own ends, seemingly cold enough to allow for the possibility of her death as well. Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains all turned in exceptional performances, and Hitchcock's direction was superb as usual. This Spy Noir film is worth your time.
Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.